Concert Review
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Christ Church Festival Orchestra Christ Church Cathedral, Friday 24th November 2000 The latest programme by this eclectic and accomplished orchestra (played amid the effigies in Oxford's beautiful cathedral) was a refreshing mixture of the relatively unknown and the robustly familiar. Composed to accompany Aristophenes' famous play, Vaughan Williams' Overture: The Wasps was a suitably flighty and hair-raising opening, which managed to transpose the satire of corrupt Athenian life onto an English setting. Not toga-clad political wasps these, you felt, so much as groups of English hornets lost in the dark forest. Flourish and swagger, lyricism and anger combined in this short but intense piece. The most challenging and complex part of the evening was the Clarinet Concerto in C minor by Gerald Finzi. Composed near the end of his life, it is like a study in the transmutation of pain. The lone clarinet, played with earthly purity by Sophie Biddell, was like an ever present but sometimes invisible thread that lead out of the labyrinth. The orchestra ably brought to life both the monster within the stone and the gentle strength needed to negotiate a way out of the vaults. The interval was an apposite break in which to wander around the gorgeous carvings (especially on St Frideswide's tomb) and think over the mature expansiveness of both pieces. I wondered if the lack-lustre start of the second half, of Vivaldi's 'Spring', was because of over-familiarity. Fortunately, only the first movement was half-hearted. Soon, the conductor (James Ross) leapt into his characteristically expressive style, and urged both playfullness and drama from an increasingly excited orchestra. By the time Vivaldi's 'Summer' arrived, the place was a fury of strings. Obviously enjoying herself, the solo violinist (Aline Nassif), played with much technical skill, only losing dominance in a few of the more demanding passages. The final two billings were evocative, often-heard salon pieces. Beethoven's Violin Romance No.2 was like an immediate injection of Vienna. Languorous and sensual, it offered rest after the preceding calamities. The violin solo was effortlessly sweet, graciously supported by the lead violin (Aidan Thomas) and the rest of the orchestra. It was probably because no one wanted the evening to be over that Aline Nassif played her gypsy-like Csardas twice. This most typical of Hungarian music was composed by an Italian violinist living in Paris. It was a showy, sentimental and exuberant end to a wonderful concert.
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